A number of diaries and comments recently - on impeachment and other possible actions in protest of the current Administration - have invoked the Declaration of Independence and the right to revolution articulated therein. I'm particularly thinking of
this one by Georgia10. The words they call on are:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
I'm here to say that I don't think this is what we want to do. Follow me.
I want to make clear that I am not, in any way, opposed to legal measures like impeachment to bring the Bush Administration to account for their actions. Nor am I opposed to civil disobedience, protest, demonstrations or other means of expressing dissent with the current occupants of high office, not in general or in the particular actions under discussion here. What I am saying is that these things do not constitute a revolution.
We do not want to alter or abolish our present Form of Government. We like our present Government in the Form of the U.S. Constitution. We want to defend it against the real revolutionaries, the ones that want to abolish the independent judiciary, apply religious tests to government officials, eradicate checks and balances, invert the federal system, and establish a tyranny of the majority, so that they may set up the regular tyranny of the very powerful once the majority is no longer with them.
When we start invoking the right to revolution, we are actually buying into the Republican frame that opposing the President = opposing the U.S. This is not true. It is a fundamentally un-American. We want to remove the current administration using means granted to us by our Government: impeachment, election, and using our freedom of speech and assembly to convince others of the rightness of our cause.
Now, carry on impeaching and carrying on, knowing your true government is on your side.